Blagojevich jury foreman kept panel from dissolving

Matsumoto 'definitely the person we needed'

James Matsumoto, a soft-spoken retired video librarian, didn't raise his hand when it came time to select the jury foreman in one of the nation's most anticipated trials.

Two people had already volunteered to fill the role in the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but he was asked whether he would accept if the majority voted for him.

In typical style, he contemplated the decision — what it entailed, what the ramifications would be, what he would need to do to get it right.

"Yes," he answered. The jurors then voted Matsumoto foreman by secret ballot.

In the stuffy room on the 25th floor of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, Matsumoto's calm and calculating demeanor kept the six women and six men from unraveling, particularly as tensions grew over a lone holdout on key charges.

"He was definitely the person we needed," said fellow juror Erik Sarnello. "If he wasn't the foreman, who knows what would have happened in there."

Matsumoto, 66, was born to Japanese immigrants in an internment camp during World War II. His father had refused to agree to the loyalty oath many Japanese were required to affirm, but he wasn't deported when officials found out his wife was pregnant with the last of their seven children.

A year later, after the war's end, Matsumoto's family — each given $25 and a train ticket — headed for Chicago after hearing a rumor that a company there was hiring Japanese.

Matsumoto grew up in a Goose Island apartment above a bar that blasted Polka music. At 17, Matsumoto, a fan of author Leon Uris' "Battle Cry," told his parents he wanted to join the Marines, but they refused to allow it.

"They were resentful," he said of the three years his family lived at the internment camp.

Four years later, when he was 21 and no longer needed his parents' permission, he signed up with the Marines and later fought in Vietnam.

"I felt it was something I had to do," said Matsumoto, who wore his Marine belt buckle to the courthouse throughout the two-month trial.

"I don't know if the defense in this trial was banking on me feeling some kind of animosity toward the federal government, but I have never felt that way," he said.

Matsumoto, who attended a junior college before getting bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Chicago, prides himself on his ability to think logically. When he was asked during jury selection if he could reach a verdict solely on the evidence presented in the case, he was confident he could.

"Nobody here was surprised when he was voted foreman," said Caroline Gonzales, who worked under Matsumoto for 18 years at WTTW, the public television station where he established an archiving and cataloging system. "He's extremely intelligent. Having known him so long, we knew he would be fair, he would look at the law and he would think based on the rules."

Although Matsumoto believed Blagojevich was guilty on all 24 counts, he said he felt he had to allow other jurors to voice their opinions before he spoke his. That included a lone holdout who kept the panel from convicting the former governor on charges he tried to sell a U.S. Senate seat, jurors have told the Tribune. After 14 days of deliberation, the jury convicted Blagojevich of only one count — lying to the FBI — and deadlocked on all the others.

"There is a sense of failure, but as the judge said, 'You didn't fail, you tried your best, and there was a difference of opinion,'" Matsumoto said. "But still, I think it's natural to feel you failed in some way."

While some on the panel antagonized the holdout juror, Matsumoto told her that as long as he was foreman, he would protect her right to her opinion. On the last day, he said she gave him a hug.

"I am thankful that she was there just because it taught me more about courage and humility — being able to accept that someone else's opinion is just as valuable as yours — than I ever thought," he said.

Though friends say Matsumoto is quiet and reserved, he appears to have reveled in his role as a spokesman for the jury in numerous media appearances since the trial. He was surprised when just hours after the verdict, he returned home exhausted to find reporters camped outside his Northwest Side home. His phone has been ringing off the hook from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., he said.

During the intense deliberations, when he came home with headaches and struggled to sleep, his wife, Barbara, offered encouragement. The two had met through Matsumoto's friendship with her brother.

They began dating shortly before he shipped out with the Marines. In a faded suitcase, she has kept all the letters he wrote her during his four years in the service.

"He's a very special person," she said as her eyes welled with tears as she sat by her husband in their backyard, surrounded by a rainbow of flowers. "I'm very proud."